1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope apparatus capable of power generation by a plurality of protection modes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, endoscope apparatuses have been used in various fields, for example, in a medical field and an industrial field. In the medical field, an endoscope apparatus is used, for example, for observation of an organ in a body cavity, treatment using a treatment instrument and a surgical operation under endoscopic observation. An electronic endoscope configured to be capable of picking up an image of an inside of a patient's body cavity by an image pickup device is often adopted for an endoscope apparatus. The endoscope apparatus has a processor for performing video-processing of the picked-up image obtained by performing image pickup by the electronic endoscope, and the processor can convert the picked-up image to a video signal to output the video signal on a monitor or record the video signal.
The endoscope is detachably connected to the processor via a cable to provide a picked-up image to the processor and receives power supply from the processor. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-88656 discloses a technique for acquiring ID information about an electronic endoscope connected to a processor and generating power supply voltage suitable for the endoscope.
Various kinds of scope circuits, such as an image pickup device, sensors and various kinds of actuators, are configured in the electronic endoscope, and the processor has a plurality of kinds of power supply circuits in order to perform power supply suitable for each of the various kinds of scope circuits. Further, the processor is provided with a protection circuit for overcurrent protection and the like in order to prevent an abnormal operation, such as heat generation on a distal end and a fault in the endoscope.
How to provide protection, such as overcurrent protection, differs for each kind of scope circuit. For example, there is a case where a scope circuit immediately shuts down when a predetermined current is exceeded, a case where voltage is caused to drop so that a predetermined or larger current does not flow, and the like. Therefore, it is necessary to provide the processor with a protection circuit for each power supply circuit.
Recently, kinds of included scope circuits differ for each endoscope, and kinds of endoscopes connectable to the processor increase more and more.